Monday, April 15, 2013

Send Hub: Voice services on Android

SendHub, the Y
Combinator-backed call and messaging solution targeting business users
and other organizations, is today extending its platform to include support for Android. The company had previously rolled out support for iPhone almost a year ago, promising that an Android option was on the roadmap.
The company says that demand for Android support was high – they were
averaging around 30 requests per day from users who wanted an Android
version of SendHub.
Like the iOS version, the new app
also includes support for calling and texting over Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G or
cellular voice networks, support for group messages, the ability to add
auto-responders and contacts, and more. In addition, it includes support
for call transfers – a feature that is currently in the Apple App Store
review process, expected to launch in a week or so.
The call transfer feature, like many the company has added in recent months, is designed with the needs of businesses in mind.
SendHub, for those unfamiliar, is something like a more feature-rich
alternative to something like Google Voice. While previously targeting
both individuals and businesses, it went after the business market more
directly with the launch of its SendHub Manger
at the beginning of the year. From an online platform, organizations
using Manager can access a dashboard where they can create, move, or
delete lines for their staff, as well as backup and export the company’s
text-based communications.
Today, a third of SendHub’s 10,000 paid users are on the business
plan, and its overall conversion rate is around 2 percent, the company
claims. The startup has also grown to over 100,000 users total up from 60,000 in January. It saw more than $35,000 in revenue in March.

“The
Manager launch has shown us that businesses – and only businesses – is
really where the demand is, and where we’re going to spend our time
focusing,” says SendHub co-founder Ash Rust. ”We’ve added call transfer
and other calling features like simul-ring, call forwarding, and we’re
about to launch auto attendant as well, so we can really provide that
full-featured PBX system in the cloud for our users.”
A conference calling feature is also in the works, and further down
the road, the plan is to enable even more collaboration features,
including support for files, photos, and videos, through integrations
with cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and others.
“We’re squarely taking on the big telecom providers – AT&T,
Verizon, etc. People are looking for flexible solutions that are
optimized for their mobile devices, and frankly, don’t take forever to
set up,” adds SendHub’s co-founder Garrett Johnson. “We see people
coming to us looking to replace their PBX, looking to replace
RingCentral, or the legacy telecom providers,” he says.
The SendHub solution is currently popular among a variety of
businesses, including startups like iCracked, as well as mobile
workforces – especially those in the health care space, as well as some
more traditional brick-and-mortars. Given its start as a solution for
schools, SendHub is also used heavily in the education sector, where the
company has promised a free solution for teachers will always be
available.-- Reports Techcrunch